PTAD discovers 15,600 ghost pensioners on FG’s payroll

Verifies 5,000 at New Nigerian, others
The Pension Transitional Administration Directorate (PTAD) says it has discovered and removed 15,600 ghost pensioners from the Federal Government payroll.

Executive Secretary to PTAD, Mrs. Sharon Ikeazor, disclosed that the ghost pensioners were discovered following the verification exercises conducted as part of efforts to sanitise the payment of pensioners.

She said about 5,000 pensioners from New Nigerian Newspapers, NICON Insurance, Nigerian Re-Insurance and civilian retirees of Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) are undergoing final verification that started on Monday in Kaduna, Lagos and Abuja and scheduled to end on Friday, adding that the pensioners once verified will enter the Federal Government pension payroll within four months.

Ikeazor told journalists yesterday at the NDA Staff Secondary School in Kaduna where the verification exercise is ongoing that the ghost pensioners were removed from the payroll in December 2016 as their accounts were not connected to any Bank Verification Numbers (BVN).

“When we took the ghost pensioners out of the payroll; there was no much outcry and only few were actually genuine cases and they were put back on the payroll,” she said.

She said that the present verification, which is taking place simultaneously, is a continuous process, adding that pensioners can visit their office in Abuja and Kaduna to complete their verification.

“New Nigerian Newspapers is a special case, we have less than 700 pensioners in New Nigerian. We are doing it batch by batch. We are expecting 998 pensioners in Kaduna from the three agencies and about 5,000 in total.

“We are conducting the entire verification for civil servants, police, parastatals and paramilitary. Civil service verification is expected to be concluded in 2018. We just began that of parastatals and hope to conclude it in 2018.

“After the verification, there would be computation. After four months, they would be on the payroll because it has to go through audit process before payment is made electronically. We maintain a TSA account with CBN and pensioners are paid from that account through e-payment,” she added.

The PTAD boss warned pensioners without BVN to get one linked with their account, as they cannot be paid without the BVN.